Sentences with phrase «of ice shelves»

IMO, the strongest argument for sea ice decline over the last decade for being unusual and at least in part attributable to global warming is this (from Polyakov et al.): The severity of present ice loss can be highlighted by the breakup of ice shelves at the northern coast of Ellesmere Island, which have been stable until recently for at least several thousand years based on geological data.

The grounding lines of ice shelves in this region have been rapidly retreating (several kilometres per year), as this paper shows using satellite data.

The poor state of Antarctic temperature measurement does not prevent us from seeking other direct evidence of warming, for example, rapid break up of ice shelves.

The corresponding increased ice sheet mass loss has often followed thinning, reduction or loss of ice shelves or loss of floating glacier tongues.

Increased surface melting, loss of ice shelves, and reduction of summer and autumn sea ice around the Antarctic and Greenland continents during the warmest interglacials would have a year - round effect on temperature, because the increased area of open water has its largest impact on surface air temperature in the cool seasons.

A significant uncertainty in future projections of sea level is associated with dynamical changes in the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and a key aspect of this uncertainty is the role of ice shelves, how they might respond to climate change, and the effect this could have on the ice sheets.

This was the largest in a 30 - year series of retreats of ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula, the only part of the continent that scientists had predicted would be affected soon by greenhouse warming.

Vaughan, D. G. & Doake, C. S. M. Recent atmospheric warming and retreat of ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula.

WAIS collapse may be preceded by the disintegration of ice shelves and the acceleration of ice streams.

Thinning or loss of ice shelves reduces friction, allows faster flow of the non-floating ice feeding the shelves, and thus contributes to sea - level rise.

Furthermore, the recent behavior of ice shelves in Greenland (Nettles and Ekstrom, 2010),

Scientists recognize that the final stages of iceberg break - up resemble the rapid disintegration of ice shelves caused by climate warming.

The important role of ice shelves in stabilizing marine ice sheets introduces the potential for large and rapid ice - sheet shrinkage.

Ice shelves are important because they help control glacier flow; removal of ice shelves causes rapid glacier acceleration and calving.

Rignot and his co-authors calculated the mass of ice shelves with satellites and airplane radar readings that can penetrate ice and tell how thick it is.

A schematic of ice shelves melting in Antarctica.

Lost photos prove Greenland's ice was melting FASTER 80 years ago than today 80 - year - old photo plates from Danish polar explorerProve that Greenland's glaciers melted faster in 30s than they did todayBrief cooling period mid-century re-froze icePre - satellite images of ice shelves are extremely rare By Rob Waugh Published: 08:06 GMT, 30 May 2012 Updated: 11:54 GMT, 30 May 2012 The glacier named after Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen in Greenland A stash of 80 - year - old photo plates in a Danish basement has proved that Greenland's ice was melting even faster then that it is now.

«As ice shelves continuously lose ice by calving, it is essential to know how far the recession of ice shelves may progress before buttressing potential is reduced.»

After 90 days, the Antarctic Peninsula anomaly can locally exceed 0.5 °C, and within a few years can explain the observed warming trends at the base of the ice shelves in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas.

80 - year - old photo plates from Danish polar explorerProve that Greenland's glaciers melted faster in 30s than they did todayBrief cooling period mid-century re-froze icePre - satellite images of ice shelves are extremely rare By Rob Waugh Published: 08:06 GMT, 30 May 2012 Updated: 11:54 GMT, 30 May 2012 The glacier named after Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen in Greenland A stash of 80 - year - old photo plates in a Danish basement has proved that Greenland's ice was melting even faster then that it is now.

Warmer water has been detected closer to the edges of Antarctica in recent years, and that can accelerate the melting of ice shelves from below.

Climate change signals are amplified in polar regions and indicators, such as the collapse of ice shelves and melting of sea ice, have raised public awareness of the consequences of a warming world.

The break - up of ice shelves can also leave huge ice cliffs 1,000 m high towering over the ocean, which then collapse under their own weight, pushing up sea level even further.

Trusel's study is the first to comprehensively study the sensitivity of warming air temperature on the stability of ice shelves in Antarctica, which are the floating extensions of glaciers and act to constrain the glaciers» speed.

«Underneath these waves were much larger waves on the bottom of the ice shelves, caused by melting,» Bindschandler said.

A new satellite study of ice shelves in West Antarctica has revealed they are steadily losing their grip with adjacent land and could intensify the acceleration of ice loss in the area.

This warmer water in turn, contributes to the melting of the ice shelves, several of which have disintegrated in recent years, including the Larsen A and B ice shelves.

And about rapid, «faster - than - expected» melting of ice shelves in West Antarctica.

Siberia seems to be too dry to support marine terminating glaciers, which would be a prerequisite for the existence of ice shelves in the area.

For calculating melting at the base of ice shelves and the fronts of tidewater glaciers, we need better estimates of ice roughness represented in models by a «drag coefficient.»

The community also needs to increase the database of tide - resolving measurements of vertical motion of ice shelves and lateral motion of grounded and floating ice.

Scientists have studied the rates of basal melt, or the melting of the ice shelves from underneath, of individual ice shelves, the floating extensions of glaciers that empty into the sea.

On time scales of years to centuries, the largest changes in tides around the ice sheets are likely to be caused by changes in the extent and thickness of ice shelves.

The studies, entitled Rapid Submarine Ice Melting in the Grounding Zones of Ice Shelves in West Antarctica and Grounding Line Retreat of Pope, Smith and Kohler Glaciers took a comprehensive look at both surface and underside melt of three major west Antarctic glaciers near the Thwaites and Pine Island Glacier systems.

Luke Trusel, postdoctoral scholar at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US, and colleagues report in Nature Geoscience that they foresee a doubling of surface melting of the ice shelves by 2050.

Most of the ice shelves along the northern coast of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago are gone.

The Quaternary glacial history of the Arctic Ocean is characterized by the repeated build - up and decay of circum - Arctic ice sheets on the continental shelves, the development and disintegration of ice shelves, and related changes in ocean - circulation patterns and sea ice cover50, 51,52,53,54,55.

Nitsche also applauded the coring methodology the researchers used as a means of investigating the history of ice shelves for longer time periods than remote sensing and ship - based observations provide.

Now we can see the importance of the ice shelves in supporting and slowing down the glaciers.

With summer temperatures now regularly rising above freezing, ice melts into puddles on the top of ice shelves along the peninsula.

Jacobs et al (1992) Melting Of Ice Shelves And The Mass Balance Of Antarctica, Journal Of Glaciology, Vol.

But scientists warn that the loss of ice shelves in the region could predicate sea level rise.

Speaking this week at a conference on avoiding climate change hosted by the British government, Rapley warned that the melting of ice shelves which have been present since the last ice age may speed up glacial melt in a «cork out of bottle» effect.

Scientists from the University of Erlangen - Nuremberg Institute of Geography and from the Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Gophysique de l'Environnement in Grenoble, France, used radar data from satellites such as ESA's Envisat and observations of ice thickness from airborne surveys in a complex model to demonstrate, for the first time, how the buttressing role of the ice shelves is being compromised as the shelves decline.

This co-incided with the late - Holocene development of ice shelves near JRI.

The breakup of these ice shelves is a concern, because that would essentially remove the stopper and greatly accelerate the rate at which glacier melt finds its way to the ocean.

In the case of the East Antarctica Ice - Sheet (EAIS), the situation has been less clear: thinning of ice shelves and acceleration of glaciers have been described in some areas but it has to date given an impression of relative stability.

The new research predicts a doubling of surface melting of the ice shelves by 2050.

The great unknown, which the recent Hansen paper suggests at several metres, is the 21st century eustatic rise, due primarily to ice sheet melting (also melting of polar and mountain glaciers, and of ice shelves).

Given the level of denialism in the face of glacial mass loss, plummeting Arctic summer ice cover, progressive collapse of ice shelves that have been stable for 6000 to 10000 years, northward, upward, and seasonally earlier movements of ecosystems and other phenological changes, increasing Greenland ice melt, and all the other direct observations of global warming, I think denialists will go to their graves believing it can't be happening.